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Egypt’s accusations have GTA Coptic Christian fearing for his life

Nader Fawzy hasn't left his Scarborough apartment since Egyptian government said it holds him partly responsible for U.S.-made anti-Islam film.

Nader Fawzy, an Egyptian-born Canadian, has been threatened with death by imams in Egypt, who say the Scarborough resident helped produce a video blaspheming Islam's Prophet Mohammad. (Rick Westhead / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Nader Fawzy has been living in fear this week, anxious on the streets of his Scarborough neighbourhood, cautious driving his car, vigilant even in the lobby of his highrise.

For the past several days, Fawzy hasn’t left his small apartment.

“Someone could come at me anywhere, maybe in my building, maybe in the car garage,” he said.

Fawzy, an unemployed single father who lives with his three children, learned this week that the Egyptian government holds him partly responsible for the sacrilegious video lampooning Islam’s Prophet Muhammad that has stoked violence throughout the Muslim world.

Egypt’s prosecutor general has included Fawzy and fellow Egyptian-born Canadian Jacques Attalla on a list of people he says were involved with the film’s production, promotion and distribution.

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Fawzy, 52, and Attalla, a Montreal resident who said he is in his late 50s, said in interviews that they had nothing to do with the video.

The 14-minute trailer, called Innocence of Muslims, met with violent protests last week after a version dubbed in Arabic was posted on YouTube. Produced and directed in California, the video depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud and womanizer.

The man behind the film is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who U.S. authorities believe used the alias Sam Bacile. Nakoula has been forced into hiding since the trailer began drawing attention.

The video has sparked outrage and violence in many countries including Libya, where U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others were killed in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

Fawzy and Attalla said the government in Cairo has targeted them to settle political scores because they both are Coptic Christian activists. They say they have spent years fighting to promote the rights of Egypt’s eight million Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 per cent of country’s population and are viewed as enemies of the state by conservative Islamists.

At least five other Copts, primarily based in the U.S., have been identified on the list.

Worse than the Egyptian government’s anger, Fawzy and Attalla have also drawn the wrath of prominent imams in Egypt who have issued fatwas on both of them, urging Muslims anywhere in the world to behead them.

Fatwas, or religious edicts, are typically issued by religious scholars based on the Qur’an and the teachings of Muhammad. They can be as trivial as a Saudi fatwa against Pokemon game cards or as serious as the death sentence issued against author Salman Rushdie in 1989.

Fawzy said his Member of Parliament, Liberal Jim Karygiannis, has promised to help him secure police protection.

“Of course, there is much reason to be worried and afraid. I’m not so much worried for myself as I am for my children,” Fawzy said. “I chose this life, they did not.

“We know I am a target and we know that these people are not afraid to do beheadings, even in a place like Toronto,” he said. “Look what happened in Holland with the filmmaker.”

In November 2004, filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a critic of radical Islam, was shot and had his throat slit on an Amsterdam street by a Moroccan-born Dutch citizen who called him an enemy of Islam.

Fawzy said the Egyptian government is angry with him for several reasons. In 2007, he filed a lawsuit against then-president Hosni Mubarak on behalf of the families of 22 Coptic Christian activists who died in police custody. That lawsuit remains active, even though Mubarak was ousted last year during the Arab Spring uprising.

Fawzy also left his opponents in Egypt seething the same year after he published a book called The Persecutions, a history of Coptic Christianity. He said he has shipped more than 10,000 copies for free to readers around the world, including those in Egypt, where his book is banned.

“My friends called me from Egypt on Tuesday to tell me the news of the fatwa and I thought, ‘What have I done now?’ ” Fawzy said. “I’m not surprised that they want me arrested, but I’m shocked they say I had anything to do with this video.

“I have nothing against Islam and would not have made a video like this, but I’m still in favour of free speech and I really don’t understand the huge response to something so small.”

Attalla said Islamic conservatives are angry with him because he hosts a weekly TV show via Skype from his Montreal home, called Updating the News in Egypt. The show, which is in Arabic and broadcast over a satellite TV channel called Coptic TV, is available on the Internet and via satellite.

“I tell people the real news about their country that they do not get even after Mubarak because the news media in Egypt is still censored,” Attalla said.

Attalla also said he was mentioned in an email that someone using the “Sam Bacile” alias sent to the Egyptian government about the video.

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird refused to discuss the case Friday.

“We don’t talk about these issues publicly,” he said. “We’ll certainly work privately on that issue.”

In a letter sent to Baird earlier Friday, Karygiannis wrote: “Canada must ask the Egyptian government for the evidence that caused these Canadians names to be placed on the list and, if the evidence is found to be insufficient, the Canadian government must demand that Fawzy’s and Attalla’s names be immediately removed from the list.”

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